Trials 2: Second EditionReview

Share.

You'll die a lot in this brutal puzzle stunt racer, but you'll love every minute of it.

By Jimmy Thang

Some people revel at the thought of pain. To some, it's a turn on. I used to think these masochistic folk were crazy, but Trials 2: Second Edition, developer Redlynx's brutal motorcycle racer, shows us pain can be fun. Unlike most racing games, there are no on-screen opponents in Trials 2. Your goal is simple: maneuver through dangerous obstacles to reach the end of the level. Although the game initially looks like a shallow stunt game, it's actually one of the more challenging physics-based puzzlers today. You're going to die a lot, and you're going to have fun doing it. Kids, DO try this at home. (The game, not suicide.)

There are a lot of punishing videogames throughout history (Ninja Gaiden, Ghosts 'n Goblins, Shaq Fu--the last one painful in its own sadistic way), but nothing in recent memory has managed to kill me as many times as Trials 2. Beelzebub himself would not be able to conjure up some of the game's devilish levels. Each track has multiple checkpoints. When you break bones or die you will continue from the last checkpoint, but your time trial score suffers as your death toll increases. Trying to finish some of these levels is difficult in its own right. Factoring time into the equation only makes it more challenging. The game features multiple camera angles, including a first-person mode, but is most easily played from a 2D perspective.

Evel Knievel never had to do this.

Trials 2 has a steep learning curve, but amazingly, there is no turning in this racer and there are only four major buttons to push. Press up to accelerate. Press down to stop and go backwards. Press right to lean forwards, and press left to lean backwards. The default controls are fine with the keyboard, but you can also use a game controller if you would like. Despite the seemingly primitive controls, the game offers heaps of depth. Heaps, I say!

With only four buttons to press, how hard can this game be? Over accelerating will cause you to accidentally pop a wheelie, in turn, forcing you to wipe out. Leaning forward to rebalance yourself can make you dive headfirst into the concrete. These small growing pains are miniscule compared to the crazy and gnarly deaths possible in Trials 2. The levels get progressively harder, and soon you will encounter monster loops and fiery rings of death that serve as the game's puzzles. There's almost an infinite number of ways to die. If it was possible to die from second hand smoking in a stunt racer, Redlynx would have found a way. The control's depth presents itself by allowing you to preload your jumps. Sit back on the bike to fly high or lean forward to shoot downwards. You can also angle your motorcycle in midair to ensure your vehicle is parallel to the ground when it lands. Even though the controls aren't pressure sensitive, I found myself pressing down on the keys really hard for mental reassurance. At first you will heavily rely on the courses' checkpoints just to complete each course. As you keep playing you will get better and your mentality changes from survival to mastery. The good thing about the game is that even though it's challenging, it never feels cheap.

In hopes of not sounding like the philosophical Mr. Miyagi, Trials 2 Second Edition's biggest strength is also its biggest weakness. Many will be turned off by the game's learning curve. It's simply not for everybody. A lot of people will be frustrated by how much patience is required, and a lot of people will not care for the concept altogether. For those willing to master Trials 2, it becomes extremely rewarding. You can save your replays and compare yourself to the world's top players via an in-game online ranking system. Watching the replay of the number-one ranked player on any hard track can be a ridiculous sight to behold.

Trials 2 is easy to play, but very hard to master.

Speaking of beholding sights, the graphics don't look too shabby. The game's graphics won't take your breath away; it is more than suitable, considering the first version of Trials worked well as a Flash game. The graphics more than satisfy with its realistic depth of field, ambient lighting, bloom effects, motion blur, and volumetric particles. Your motorcycle engine billows smoke. Sparks fly high. Basically, it looks good overall, although you will encounter several graphical twitches here and there. Sometimes your rider will smash into an object and fuse with it in a glitchy manner. Also, for a game that has fairly realistic physics, when your character gets knocked out, he will occasionally flop and flail about on the floor like he's having seizures. These are minor flaws, but they're definitely noticeable.

Unfortunately the game's presentation does not go unnoticed. While the dark and grey environments look fine, it would be nice to see different environments with more varied colors. The menus on the other hand are flat out terrible. Although the navigation is functional, it looks cheap, unprofessional, and uses a horrible looking font. The art in general looks very generic and bargain bin.

The game's sound mechanics fair a little better than the presentation. When accelerating, the bike's engine appropriately roars and calms as you bring the vehicle to a halt. The music on the other hand isn't so sound, but that's mostly due to the game having only two songs; one for the menu and one for the actual racing. Even though the one hard-rock track you hear when you play the game isn't bad, would it kill the developer to hire a DJ?

There's a good chance you'll hear that one song a lot because Trails 2 has a good amount of replayability. There are currently 51 tracks with more being added sporadically. If you're good you can complete all of the levels in a handful of hours; but it's really about mastering the tracks quickly and efficiently, which will take you time. Unfortunately the game doesn't have a track editor, though due to the nature of the focus-tested tracks it would admittedly be buggy as hell in the wrong hands. Thankfully Trials 2 does offer other time trial modes. There's a Flip mode that rewards you for completing the track with the most flips. There's a Wheelie mode that promotes hanging on to your wheelie as much as possible. Finally there's a Dynamic mode that forces you to interact with the unstable environment. Even though these modes are a nice addition, each mode only offers three or four tracks each. Luckily, the game has included 25 unlockable achievements to expand the game a little more. I'd wish you good luck on getting the every-bone-broken achievement, but my hunch is that you won't need it.

The Verdict

Gamers who enjoy physics based puzzle games like Portal and challenging old-school 2D games will get a kick out of Trials 2. This game has been tailor made to meet the demands of competitive gamers. However, this game isn't for everyone. The learning curve will be too much for some. Overall this game achieves what it sets out to do with flying colors. It's calculated mayhem at its best. The game runs for $9.99 on Valve's Steam service. For that price it will give you a bloody good time.